Authentic voice

I spent the weekend at Western Half-Yearly Meeting in Sorrento, BC, a gathering of Quakers in western Canada that I have attended most years since 1994. Again I felt the opening, welcoming community of those I have watched grow and change. That experience, and listening to what I had to say to other people, has helped me to further name the journey I am on, which is about finding authentic voice, and about growing the courage to speak with that authentic voice in full awareness that others may find it uncomfortable, may react, may feel that it is inappropriate. I am ready to leave my life-long strategy of carefully tuning my self-presentation to suit what I thought I knew of my audience. In that process, I think I will probably discover that what I thought I knew was often wrong. And will often be confirmed in my prejudices.

Chia Rebranded

On a recent tour of a whole/health food store, I came across a glossy display for a new wonder food, "Salba" tagged as "Nature's most powerful Whole Food". With a lot of bright packaging and glossy ads, Salba seems poised to be a big player in the nutriceutical world, promising many omega 3's, fibre and antioxidants. Salba certainly has had some serious marketing work! It takes some searching, but I did discover that the latin name for the plant is Salvia hispanica - in the mint family.

Turns out that the remarkable Salvia hispanica has already had a glorious marketing history. A google search, or a look at Wikipedia uncovers the fact that Salvia hispanica was wildly successful - as the fast growing seed in the Chia Pet!

It may or may not be a remarkable food, but it certainly has hefty marketing pedigree.